Train Hits Veterans' Parade, Killing 4

Officials respond after a trailer carrying wounded veterans in a parade was struck by a train in Midland, Texas, on Thursday.
Associated Press

By

Nathan Koppel And

Andy Pasztor

Updated Nov. 16, 2012 10:50 a.m. ET

MIDLAND, Texas—Federal and local investigators Thursday night were studying the site where a freight train slammed into a parade float full of wounded veterans and their families, killing at least four people and sending 17 to the hospital, city officials said.

A flatbed truck participating in the "Hunt for Heroes" parade was struck at about 4:40 p.m. by a Union Pacific Corp. train double-stacked with cargo containers.

Two of the injured were in critical condition late Thursday, said Marcy Madrid, a spokeswoman for Midland Memorial Hospital. The others were stable or had been released.

Two-dozen veterans and their spouses or partners attended the parade, which was sponsored by Show of Support, Military Hunt Inc., a Midland-based group that holds an annual outdoors trip for wounded veterans, organizers said.

All the veterans were amputees, had been severely burned in combat or had suffered other severe wounds that left them disabled, said John Philbeck, president of a local veterans group.

Before the parade, the honorees had toured the veterans' memorial in Midland, part of which depicts a helicopter evacuating wounded soldiers during the Vietnam War. "They really connected emotionally with the scene," Mr. Philbeck said, because "all of them were evacuated by chopper" after being wounded.

A freight train slammed into a parade float carrying wounded veterans in Midland, Texas, on Thursday, killing four. In a briefing Friday, the National Transportation Safety Board describes its investigation into the accident.

The visiting veterans, who were from across the U.S., were then evenly divided on two bunting-covered trailers en route to the Midland County Horseshoe Arena, where thousands were expected to attend a banquet in their honor in what has become an annual tradition in West Texas.

After the first flatbed made it across the tracks, the second was struck by a train that local law-enforcement officials estimated was traveling about 55 miles per hour, Mr. Philbeck said.

One witness said the crossing-barrier arms started to descend onto the trailer and then rose up again, sending veterans and their family members scurrying off the truck. "People were flying off the trailer on both sides, almost like a waterfall," he said.

ENLARGE

Bystanders reacted as emergency personnel worked the scene.
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The last thing he saw was a big cloud of dust, the witness said, followed soon by ambulance sirens.

"All of a sudden we heard a train horn, and we turned around to look behind us," said Pam Shoemaker, who attended the event with her veteran husband and was sitting on the first flatbed to cross the tracks. The gate for the train crossing had swung down, but then appeared to bounce up, she said. Suddenly, the train was on them. "There wasn't any time. That train came. It was unexpected," she said.

Thursday night, investigators walked the length of the train, armed with flashlights. The train wasn't able to stop until about a mile past the crossing where it collided with the float.

Tom Lange, a spokesman for the railroad, said, "Our preliminary finding is that the [crossing's] lights and gates were working and that the train crew sounded the locomotive horn."

The train originated in Arcade, Texas, and was heading to Shreveport, La. Its two crew members weren't injured.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with the family and friends of those involved," Mr. Lange said.

Neil Doggett, an Oklahoma father of Air Force Master Sgt. Christopher Doggett, who was injured in the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia, said his son was on the first veterans' float that crossed the tracks safely. "Thank God," he said, adding that his son was very excited in the days leading up to the Midland event. "He called me and assured me that he and his wife were okay."

The National Transportation Safety Board said it was launching an investigation of the accident, and hoped to have some investigators on site late Thursday. A board spokeswoman didn't provide any details about what happened.

Midland, located about 300 miles northwest of the capital, Austin, is a city with a population of about 100,000. Known for its high-rise office buildings, a legacy of its oil-drilling heritage, it boasts a petroleum museum and President George W. Bush's childhood home.

Marge Langley, who has lived in Midland since 1954, said the last fatal accident at a train crossing in town that she could recall was "about 30 or 40 years ago when some teenagers on their lunch hour ran a stop sign."

News of the accident reached some participants who were waiting at the Horseshoe Arena. "Some of the participants in the parade had already arrived in the banquet hall, and when word spread about the accident, you had 500 to 1,000 people in tears," said Kirk Cleere, a drilling contractor from San Angelo, Texas, who was at the arena.

The planned festivities, which had included presenting veterans with rifles before a deer hunt, have all been canceled, said Mr. Cleere's father, Sonny Cleere, a San Angelo businessman who helped organize some of the events.

"We have a benefactor, who chooses to remain anonymous, who was going to give each one of these heroes $2,000," Sonny Cleere said. "We are now trying to see how we can provide financial assistance to the veterans and their families affected by this."

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